A 30-year-old undertrial escaped from Calcutta Medical College and Hospital on Friday evening, giving guards the slip.

Md. Shamim — arrested at Bhadreswar, in Hooghly, and sent to Presidency jail from Hooghly jail on January 4 — was admitted to the hospital with a heart ailment on Thursday afternoon. But 18 hours later, he broke open the window pane of a second-floor toilet in the cardiothoracic vascular surgery ward and fled, even with securitymen on guard at the door.

Superintendent of Presidency jail S. Hussain said he had sought a report from the police about the escape. “How could Shamim manage to flee when policemen kept a vigil on him'” he asked.

Deputy commissioner of police, reserve force, Ranvir Kumar has ordered an inquiry into the matter.

“The fact that Shamim broke open the window and escaped without the guards noticing it points to negligence on their part,” Kumar said on Saturday.

The hospital authorities had lodged an FIR with the Bowbazar police on Friday night. Deputy superintendent of Calcutta Medical College and Hospital, A. Biswas, said the prisoner was brought to the hospital under tight security around 12.30 pm on Thursday.

“The security cover seemed fool-proof and Shamim was obviously not well when he was admitted to the cardiothoracic vascular surgery ward, which is on the second floor of the hospital,” Biswas said.

Two armed guards had been posted at bed number 17 of the ward, where Shamim was kept, not too far from the toilet. The guards tailed him whenever he went to the toilet, at least four to five times during his brief stay in the hospital.

At about 8.20 pm on Friday, Shamim requested permission to go to the toilet. The guards followed him. When Shamim did not come out even after 10 minutes, the guards broke open the door and found that Shamim had fled by the window. The pane was found broken. “He had used the drainpipe to glide down,” one of the guards told the hospital authorities.

Soon after, a police team scanned the hospital and the adjoining areas. Night-long raids were also conducted at several points in north Calcutta, but without any result.

nBoy run over: A seven-year-old boy was run over by a lorry at the crossing of Circular Garden Reach Road and Hyde Road on Saturday morning. The victim, Pritam Dhanu, was crossing the road when the lorry hit him, police said. Dhanu was rushed to hospital, where he died in the evening. The lorry was impounded but the driver fled. A mob assembled on the spot and blocked the road protesting rash driving.